Only Human
by Short-Haired Nymph
Summary: Wheatley has to learn to live with the decisions he makes, for better or for worse, and it results in facing the things he fears from himself. Eventual Chell/Wheatley.
1. Chapter 1

This is the first time I don't actually have an idea of what I'm writing, so it might be more successful than past projects. I recently replayed Portal/Portal 2, and then my friends showed me Portal Stories: Mel and I felt a surge of inspiration.

Only warning I can think of for this chapter is mention/vague-ish descriptions of nausea/vomiting. If there's a better way to put that, or if there are any other warnings I should put here, please let me know!

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INITIATING STARTUP

DETECTED HARDWARE UPGRADE. DOWNLOADING SOFTWARE AND DRIVERS…

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INSTALLING…

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INSTALLATION 24% COMPLETE…

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INSTALLATION 52% COMPLETE…

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INSTALLATION 87% COMPLETE…

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INSTALLATION 94% COMPLETE…

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ERROR: CPU INCOMPATIBLE

ERROR: OPTIC APERTURE FUNCTION INCOMPATIBLE

ERROR: INSUFFICIENT HARD DRIVE STORAGE

CANCELLING INSTALLATION…

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CANCELLATION OVERRIDEN. FINISHING INSTALL…

INSTALL COMPLETE.

THIS SOFTWARE MAY NOT HAVE INSTALLED PROPERLY. TROUBLESHOOT? Y/N

SELECTION: N

REBOOTING.

INITIATING START UP

WELCOME.

Good morning! You have been in suspension for—THREE—days. In compliance with state and federal regulations, all candidates in the Aperture Science Extended Relaxation…

"What have you done to me?"

His voice, coming from a mouth and not from speakers, was weak, and he barely found the strength to get his lips to form words. No answer came except a buzzer, which made him jump. Only seconds after, he felt dizzy, and it felt like something in his middle kept turning over.

"I've only done exactly what we've agreed on."

And there was her voice, soft and cold as ever, though the slightest bit more proud of herself than usual.

He changed his mind. If this was what the rest of his existence would be like, he wished he'd just let his battery pack run out before. His middle—his stomach, he recalled the word—kept turning, over and over and over, and if he opened his mouth again it felt like he'd spew everything out.

She spoke to him again. "Stand up."

He shut his optic—his eyes—and groaned, rolling over and pulling his limbs closer to him. Everything was too long, he wasn't supposed to have all these parts to him, like legs and a nose and fingers, and it was all so sensitive and too harsh and—

"Stand up."

"Wait–" He croaked. "Please, please just wait, I can't–"

"I want you out of my sight as soon as possible. The adrenal vapors should help. There's a simple cube-and-button test in the next room, something even a moron like you couldn't mess up. When you can complete that without falling over onto your face, or blowing up my facility, it means you're functional enough to get out of here, and I'll send you on your way."

He opened his mouth briefly, before shutting it and clapping his hand over it. Though words were his intention, something else in his stomach very much wanted out of his mouth.

"Since you can't speak without wanting to further ruin my facility with your bodily refuse, I'll answer the question for you. I don't care where you go. I'll send you up to the surface, in the same elevator I used to let the lunatic go. Oh… I think that was the very same elevator trackyou were supposed to send her up. But then you broke the track. And the elevator. All because she's smarter than you. But I can tell you that's not a difficult feat."

Swallowing thickly, he cringed at the awful lump in his throat and the way his optic—his eyes—stung. The lump moved down into his chest and he couldn't breathe, it hurt and he didn't want this anymore. Still feeble, he curled up into the smallest little ball he could.

"I spent a lot of time fixing that elevator, and realigning the track. Assuming you don't find some way to wreck it again on your way up, that's where you'll go. And once you get to the surface, I don't care what happens to you. It would be a shame if you dropped dead then and there, after all that time I spent repairing you, putting you into that decrepit, wiry excuse for a body, and, you know, letting you live. You did put me into a potato. And you almost obliterated my entire facility. I have a million times more energy than I did in that potato, and do you know what? I still don't have it in me to care for your well-being."

"You've made your point…" He whispered, feeling very, very small under her words.

"Oh, look at that. You managed to speak and not dirty up the relaxation chamber."

Neither of them said anything more, and he knew that she'd left him to his own devices. With pained, labored breaths, he tried to sit up. He propped himself up with his hands behind him, and took a second to adjust. He blinked, trying to look around, but nothing would come into focus. He wasn't sure if he preferred this over the crack on his optic before. Then, it was a porrly split image that didn't line up right. Now, everything was blurry, and bright, and it made him dizzy.

His stomach stopped turning, but instead rose up and pushed him to lean over the edge of the bed and let it out. He retched, wishing he could cry out in pain and his body kept pushing stuff out of him even when he was sure there was nothing left in him at all. When he finally stopped, he collapsed back onto the bed, barely having the strength to make sure he was on his side. He couldn't recall why, but that seemed to be the important thing to take care of.

The bed let out a small hiss, everything starting up again, and ensuring he fell back asleep quickly.

INITIATING SLEEP MODE.

WHEATLEY_ALPC_ANDROID OFFLINE.


	2. Chapter 2

Brief descriptions of a sickly looking body that hasn't moved a muscle in, uh, a long time, and frequent mentions of nausea + trying to act out on it.

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INITIATING START UP…

WELCOME

" _Good morning! You have been in suspension for—16—HOURS. In compliance with state and federal regulations…_ "

This time, for sure, he could at least sit up, maybe move his legs around so he could sit on the edge of the bed. Tiny little Wheatley could certainly figure out how to do that. With a pained groan, he pushed himself up, hands on the mattress to support a little more of his weight. After a brief second of the room spinning before his eyes, he decided to take a glance at the body GLaDOS stuck him in.

He was dumbfounded.

This was a human body.

He expected to find she'd made him an avatar of silicone and metal and wires, but there was something about the distinctively pale, sickly skin clinging to bone that jarred him. He knew he wasn't whole, from the radiant blue glow in his chest. But he was, fearfully, awfully, beyond a shred of doubt, human.

Deciding he didn't want to look at this body anymore (or think about whose it was, or where GLaDOS had pulled it from, or why it was still lying around when every human in this facility had been dead for _over a century_ ), he went back to the task at hand: getting out of bed. He had managed to sit up so far, as slowly as he'd done it. Now to shove his legs over the edge of the bed. Just how he was supposed to move these stupidly gangling limbs around, though, Wheatley wasn't sure. This was a body of stupid proportions, and whomever it was must have led a miserable existence, trying to fumble around with these things all the time. This must have been one of the ways she was trying to punish him.

After several minutes, he did manage to move his legs around, and his bare feet touched the floor and he jumped, completely unused to this sort of contact and wondering why humans would ever choose to evolve to be so _sensitive_ to their environment—it was just exhausting, really, and tedious—what was the point?

And what was the deal with his eyes? Why couldn't anything come into focus? He registered his feet on the floor as unhealthy-slightly-off-white colored masses on white tile. Did all humans see like this or was this particular body just cursed with oddly long proportions and poor vision? Wheatley decided humans were amazing, getting around all the time even with all these bodily impediments.

Still, he'd managed to sit upright, and figured out how to move around. Surely that was something. Now if he could stand up…

Immediately, he regretted that decision, as he found that his legs clearly couldn't hold him up for more than a split second, and falling back down to the bed made his stomach turn over violently. In an instant, as though this human had some strange automated, pre-programmed function—a silly idea, humans had no such function, certainly—he leaned back over, off the bed, and his body tried once more to push something out of him—

But nothing came.

In his throat, he made strange choke-y, painful noises—dry-heaving? Was that the term?—as his system tried to churn out more of what it already pushed out yesterday. Everything had been expelled from him, and now he felt even weaker than before, if that were possible. He convulsed a few more times over the span of several minutes. His back ached, his stomach kept trying to contract in more painful manners every few seconds, he was drenched in a cold sweat from how much energy this body kept putting out that it didn't have, his head pulsed and spun madly, the lights were too bright, and Wheatley generally felt thoroughly unpleasant.

He let himself fall back onto the bed, deciding even if he had the strength to lay himself back down more gently that it wouldn't have made a difference in how much pain he was in, and waited patiently for the relaxation chamber to help him rest a bit more. Drained as he felt, the bed didn't hiss and he didn't feel any sleepier than he did before. What it was waiting for, he had no idea. Couldn't even begin to guess. He lay there for several minutes, though through all the pain and discomfort it felt like hours, and Wheatley admitted defeat to the bed that seemed to decide without him that he'd had enough rest—a big assumption to make, being a bed and all. What did it know about how much time was needed to rest? It was an _Extended_ Relaxation Chamber, not the _Adequate Amount of Rest for Average Human Bodies that Should Have Been Dead for Decades_ Relaxation Chamber.

There wasn't much else of a choice, though, but to try to stand up again. He did lie still for a while longer, just until a little bit of the pain in his gut and the strain in his back ebbed away. Once he decided there was no point in waiting any longer, he did try. Several times. He never made it farther than his first attempt. Each time, he felt worse than before, and his op—his eyes stung and leaked. Why wasn't this working? He was missing something, perhaps—was this another test in itself that she'd set up for him?

More and more, he wished he'd just let his battery pack run out while he still orbited the moon. That wouldn't have been so unbearable. He imagined it would have been just like powering down. Only. Forever.

The lump decided to return to his throat, where it sat uncomfortably and brought up a friend to his chest. More tears flowed down his temples. There was a need in him to do something—he was pretty sure this was called crying—like he ought to be curling up tight and making noises with his mouth—or that's what the lump in his throat felt like he needed to do—and he just couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't even look around anymore, his eyes kept slipping shut and he thought perhaps there was nothing more he wanted to do than keep sleeping. But this was different from the gentle pull the Relaxation Chamber had, this was… something else, something bad, and he couldn't figure out _what_ he was supposed to be doing.

But it felt so nice to close his eyes. He stopped crying, or at least wasn't leaking so much—why were humans so wet? On their eyes and in their mouths and… in their stomach and whatever… whatever a cold sweat was… supposed… to…

–

" _Good morning! You have been in suspension for—28—HOURS_."

This was. Unexpected.

Mostly because he felt better than before. Not entirely. But there was a significant improvement.

"Oh, good, you're awake. I can finally leave."

He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, definitely confused.

Strangely, he seemed to be able to move more easily. His back still hurt, and his stomach still felt somewhat volatile, but he propped himself up without a hitch.

"Wait, w-wait don't–" His voice still croaked and it was very coarse, but words flowed more easily from him and even as he continued speaking he still didn't feel the need to vomit, even if he was still dizzy. "Please, wait, I don't… I mean, it feels great and all, definitely not ungrateful for that, it's just–" He swallowed, "What… happened?"

"The Relaxation Chambers monitor vitals. Yours were dropping dangerously low, and not even because I had done anything. This is actually your fault, really, because I couldn't leave you alone for a _day_ without you complaining and needing something. I had to feed you through a tube. And I noticed when I went out of my way to check on you, that you went right ahead and soiled my facility with your fluids. I saved you, you should be thanking me. But no, that's all right. Laze about all you want, while I clean up after you.

"I didn't have to do this with _her_ ," She continued. "She really did beat the odds. You didn't. You can't do anything right. I should send you up to the surface right now. I'd never have to deal with you again, can you imagine that? Nobody to clean up after, just my facility. Certainly nobody that put me into a potato. Or tried to kill me. Or threw me down an elevator shaft with someone _else_ that tried to kill me."

"Well, seriously, this feels bloody amazing. I mean, not _entirely_ better—not that you didn't help, you certainly did—just mean to say I have a little ways to go yet, yeah? I'll get out of your hair in no time. …Figure of speech, that bit, you don't actually have _hair_ … to my knowledge. Dunno, I didn't notice any when I, er…" He didn't really want to think about being in her chassis again. "Well, anyway, yeah. Mean to say that I'll get out of here in no time, don't you worry, mate, absolutely nothing to worry about, just… tiny little Wheatley here…"

He did realize she'd already left before he was even halfway through that. Still, it felt good to speak, as small as his voice was. Amazingly enough, his voice was the same as before. You'd think inhabiting a different body would change things up a bit, but that was still very much a part of him, thankfully. Not that having a different voice really mattered. But maybe it did, just a little bit. It reminded him that he was still himself.

As a sphere, he, like any computer, had a built in clock, and he always had a sense of it even when he wasn't directly paying attention to that function. He didn't have that anymore. He had no idea how much time had passed in the several tries it took him to stand up and walk about. In the back of his mind he wondered how much else was different and what else had stayed the same.

He wandered around the chamber, stretching muscles that had atrophied after such a long time with no use. His steps were shaky, and at first he'd fallen over several times. He did feel nauseous every so often, but it was waning. He felt okay. Wheatley felt okay, and he didn't quite feel so much like _tiny little Wheatley_ anymore. Not when he was figuring out so quickly how to walk for the first time.

It was almost like he already knew how.

–

Time passed, who knew how long, and Wheatley had even plucked up the courage to jump a couple of times and—most impressively, he thought—ran. Not _really_ running, but he did sort of propel himself around the chamber a few times, and only for a few seconds before he stumbled over and fell on his knees. Man alive, that _hurt_ , but he noticed, interestingly enough, he never ran out of breath. A body this weak and wasted away couldn't have had great lung capacity. He wasn't sure how he knew to check, but with a hand on his chest and fingers on his neck and wrist, he found he didn't have a pulse. A few minutes later, after choking on his own spit, he realized he did have lungs, though. And a very vulnerable, human need for oxygen.

Still, he breathed too easily, right from the start. He hadn't even gasped for breath or coughed when he woke up from suspension, it just happened. He sensed these were not the lungs that this body had at first, and then wondered if they were even real lungs or something GLaDOS had stuck in him for some reason. Did lungs even work without a pulse? Or blood? Did he even have blood anymore?

That thought struck him as odd— _anymore_ , as though he ever had blood or flesh or weird leaky eyeballs.

–

If he had to guess, it had been anywhere between an hour and several hours, or several hours and a day, so really it was any length of time at all, for Wheatley to get the hang of walking around without wobbling or losing his balance. Even so, he didn't have a whole lot of energy. Even if he had possibly-fake-or-possibly-stolen lungs, the rest of him needed time. His arms shook when he tried to pull himself up off the floor, his knees knocked if he stood up too quickly, and his legs hurt after a short time of walking or jumping around.

This seemed a reasonable time to lie down as any, and this time, the bed gently lulled him into sleep almost immediately.

Upon waking, he was sure the only reason he stumbled when he got out of bed was because he couldn't _see_ anything that was in front of him. He saw masses and blurry shapes and colors but nothing solid unless it was very, very close to his face. Spatial reasoning also seemed to be an issue. Binocular depth perception was certainly useful, but he couldn't see how it mattered if everything past 18 inches of his nose was fuzzy.

So when he pulled himself out of bed, in a definitely slightly less painful manner than the day before—or however long it had been–he didn't see the white tray on the white table standing out from the white walls or white floors, and promptly fell to the floor when he collided with it. He did suppose, though, that these gangly limbs he'd been stuck with weren't all bad, as he found that standing on his knees left him at eye level with the tray.

There was food!

Not _real_ food, not like a hearty dinner with chicken and mashed potatoes—though he supposed potatoes weren't going to be in this facility for several more centuries, actually—and that wasn't to say he didn't want the food in front of him at all. In fact, even if he didn't want it, there was a peculiar _need_ in his gut to actually take food _in_ and not push stuff _out_. So the crackers, water, and… something he assumed was a sandwich, though he couldn't entirely be sure where the ingredients had come from, were more than a welcome sight. He began wolfing it down, suddenly understanding how badly this body needed food, and wondering if that would be a problem in the future because so far it seemed like _this_ body in particular needed a lot of maintenance. Was that something GLaDOS knew and used it as a punishment for him, or was that just how humans were? Either way, it was inconvenient, though he did feel markedly better, and he decided this was likely a better fate than… forever. In space.

He eventually figured out that humans need to mash up their food with the hard, mashy bits in their mouths in order to swallow it properly. And he also learned that it did _not_ feel good when he accidentally bit his tongue, or worse, the inside of his cheek. The sandwich disappeared soon, and the crackers had an interesting mix of sweet and salty flavors. But it was when he drank the water that he really, truly felt something amazing. At first he didn't trust it; even tiny little Wheatley knew it was bad if he got into contact with any water as a core. Liquids in general were dangerous, and he knew the scientists weren't lying when they told him he'd die if any water got in or on him. That much, he could trust.

It was amazing, though, to drink it. As far as he knew, it had no nutritional value, and as he chugged it he learned it had no taste whatsoever, but he drank as much as he could until his stomach felt funny and a little too full for comfort. He left the empty tray on the table, and palmed his way around it before grabbing the water to take with him. When his stomach stopped feeling like this he definitely wanted more water. Great stuff, really, a wonder that it was so good for humans and so bad for machines.

Now he took care in being cautious while he walked, as he was sure there was nothing between him and the roundish, gray mass he was pretty sure was the door, but he wanted to be safe and not bump into anything important this time.

Although, once he entered the test chamber, it really sunk in how much he needed to see clearly to get past this. She said it was a simple cube-and-button test, and from what blurry shadows and colors he could see, it was a tiny test chamber. Not much to do here but press the switch, grab the cube, and place it on the button.

After fumbling around he found the little red glow in his vision he knew to be the switch, and it made that pleasing noise it always did in every chamber when he pressed it. That had been simple enough, and the cube would fall down somewhere near him—

–like _right into his shoulder_ —

"OW! Ow, God, that hurt, that did not feel very nice… probably should have checked to see any… cube droppers… or at least a large thing on the ceiling. That was probably my fault, really…"

And not a big deal, he supposed. His shoulder hurt, but it wasn't incapacitating, and now there was a light gray blob next to him that he just needed to bring over to the button, which was—he glanced around on the floor and quickly found the large red glow—right over there. Piece of cake.

Except this was a weighted cube. No wonder it had hurt so much on its way down, the whole thing was made out of metal and it was not light, this was not a light load, not at all. Weren't these things supposed to be hollow? Had she filled them up with something to make him work extra hard? He could try pushing it instead, that was likely easier than carrying it.

It worked! Using the whole of his body to move the cube over instead of just his wiry arms made the trek easier. It got caught on the bottom of the button, and for a few seconds he felt worried that he'd be stuck in this place forever. But when he got to his hands and knees to examine the problem, he seemed to understand a bit better. Thinking to himself whether it was worth it to try to pick up the cube again so soon, he leaned against the top of it—and it tilted! Of course! He could just 'roll' it over, that was excellent!

The cube fell and sat on the button, sinking down with a satisfying 'click'. Tiny little Wheatley grinned widely, feeling quite proud that he got himself out of that conundrum. The doors slid open wide, and he proudly marched out. He squinted at the shadows and shapes around him, and grabbed the handrails on either side of him on the catwalk leading out of the test chamber. Were these stairs? He was pretty sure there were stairs here. Reaching out with his foot confirmed that there were indeed stairs, and he proceeded up them.

At the top he stopped and sat down, surprised that such a thing could tire him out so quickly. While he waited, she came back.

"Finally. I thought you'd never get out of there."

"Surprised you, did I?" Wheatley gave her a cocky smile. "Was a bit difficult, not gonna lie, needed quite the, uh, logical reasoning, and uh, physical, uh—yes, the physical… know-how aspect of it. Got it done, though! Right, got it done, all by myself and all. Seems like the type of thing a moron could not do, really, in my opinion. Just saying! Don't think a moron could have made it out of there, not for a while."

"How riveting."

"Also the fact that there's… it's my eyes, I can't see a bloody thing… not to say I'm completely blind, it's just, everything's sort of—fuzzy, I think—yeah, it's all fuzzy, unless I'm about–" He stuck his hand out in front of him, "Unless I'm this close to it, I can't see it at all."

"All right… all things considered, I'm slightly less un-impressed. Get in the elevator."

Wheatley did as he was told, standing up and wobbling for a moment before he walked over. The doors hissed shut around him, and a strange feeling overcame him as the lift rose up, up to her chamber. His hands shook and there was that cold sweat again, and his stomach wasn't turning anymore but it was like it wanted to turn and make him sick. He stared up at the ceiling of the elevator, as though that would calm him. His chest felt tight, and the word came to him finally, _apprehension_. Or was it anxiety? It was something with an A in it.

GLaDOS' chamber came into view, and the lift came to a gentle stop. The doors hissed open, and Wheatley, on shaky legs, stepped out, and for the first time in at least six years he looked up, up, up, to her in her chassis, larger than life, intimidating as she ever was. She turned to face him, her yellow optic narrowing as she leaned in closer, almost making him want to hide in the elevator and make it go back down. The cold sweat got colder and his breathing rate accelerated, and he was sure if he had a heart it would be hammering rapidly in his chest or wherever it was supposed to go. In its place, the blue glow in his chest grew hotter and hotter. She'd be sending him up any second now, any second, she had to. The Surface was... freedom, it was away from her, it was… it was…

He had no idea what it was.

The realization hit Wheatley harder than that first time he hurled all over the floor of the Relaxation Chamber. He could feel the gyroscope in his chest going haywire and now he knew he had blood because it ran cold and then he was hyperventilating and he couldn't remember being on the floor but suddenly he just wasn't standing up anymore and the words came out of him like he was vomiting again—

" _I've changed my mind I'm sorry you can't send me up there please don't send me up there I don't know where to go or what to do or how to survive you can't I'm begging you don't do this no no no no no no I don't want this anymore I don't want it you have to let me stay here I'll test for you oh God no no no no NO PLEASE—_ "

Her optic shutters opened widely, and for a split second she said nothing while he rambled on and on, but then she did speak, so softly and so coldly that it wasn't any different from how she normally spoke but it shut him up immediately because he could _hear_ the smile in her voice, "Test for me? You? The gullible, incompetent, _tumor_? You have _got_ to be kidding. I don't need you. I've got the perpetual testing initiative, I've had that for a long time. You're useless. And did I mention you couldn't solve any of those without dying? They're not even all deadly. But you were created to make bad decisions, even at your own expense. As amusing as it might be to watch you screw up the simplest tasks in the most uniquely _you_ way possible, I've put you into a very old, very fragile body. One screw up from you and all my fun would be gone in an instant. I couldn't even have the pleasure of violently disassembling you after each test.

"I've told you. I don't care what happens to you once you get up there."

The doors hissed shut again, and Wheatley scrambled to his feet to bang on the glass, screaming at the top of his lungs and screaming, _screaming_ and it didn't take long for his voice to disappear, it hadn't been used in so long. GLaDOS watched, purposely sending the elevator up slowly, and she _stared_ at him. Her lower optic rose in an imitation of a smile, one that was cold and unfeeling and cruel and one that didn't see him as anything but a nuisance, a screw up, a _moron_.

His ascent continued at an agonizingly slow pace. Collapsed on the floor, Wheatley sobbed, fully crying now as that was the only thing he seemed to have the energy for, and he couldn't make himself stop. There was absolutely nothing good to come of this, when he finally reached the surface, assuming she hadn't rigged this into some kind of torturous never-ending track just to make him scream and beg and wish he had never sent that distress signal, had never been manufactured to begin with. He pushed himself to sit upright, leaning against the glass and curling up. Not that he had a choice but to curl up, and with these long limbs he felt suffocated. Trapped. He'd give anything to just power down and let his lifeless, empty hull sit on the elevator floor so he didn't have to face whatever was up there. But he couldn't power down. He didn't even have that hull anymore. Still suppressing sobs as best as he could, he stared up at the ceiling, as though that would help him. All he could do was wait.


End file.
